Posted on 06/20/2002 8:43:49 AM PDT by cogitator
There are a lot of doom and gloomers about Dec 21, 2012. That's the date of the Winter Solstice and the end of the Mayan sacred cycle of 1,872,000 days. This cycle began on the Winter Solstice in 3114 BC. A lot of people are loosing bladder control over this facet of Mayan astronomy, but I say; "heck: its just like an odometer change." the Mayans were into really big, big numbers. Dec 22, 2012 begins the start of the next Mayan sacred cycle, which will last for 1,872,000 days.
But then again, we'll all be hit by the Asteroid 1950 DA in March 2800 and there will be no space aliens to rescue us (as we're not interesting enough). So that will be it.
I've been following along on this thread I initiated... interesting comments... your comment just made it seem appropriate to post this image of a recent (August 10, 1972) real NEAR miss:
Something tells me that they're fully prepared for an earthshaking event soon. There's been an awful lot of comets recently. Something's going on.
There is no greater catastrophe than the collision of worlds.
You'll never get a flying car now. Suicidal pilots in NYC, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, Florida and possibly Italy have seen to that.
The picture is of an asteroid actually "skipping" off the atmosphere I assume? Isn't it likely the one this post is about would have also "skipped" away, as opposed to a steep entry angle to impact? Do you know the angle of approach of the one in question?
Yes, this one skipped out. It isn't possible to figure out the entry angle of the recent flyby because it didn't hit us!
LOL! I thought word wrap was ALWAYS ON!!! Let me see if I turn it OFF what happens!
Well, I turned it OFF, but when I previewed, it turned it back ON! (Now see, when I had it OFF, and kept typing, my words just kept going and going and going and didn't make a new line break. But what the heck! It came back ON when I "previewed" it! LOL! What's it for?!
In late 1991, then-President of the Soviet Union/Russia Boris Yeltsin was informed by his advisors that a missile was headed toward the Soviet Union, and he was asked whether he wanted to launch a nuclear war against the United States. Yeltsin made a gut decision, and declined the offer. It turned out that the 'missile' was really just a sounding rocket launched by the Norwegians, whose letter of notification had been lost by the Soviet bureaucracy.
Imagine if a city-sized explosion occurred in Russia in those days. If it occurred today, would it be that much easier to stand down from a full nuclear alert?
It's estimated that 'Tunguska'-type impacts happen about once every century. So we're due for another one.
It would be nice to be prepared, rather than panicked.
Near miss?...What did it hit?
So are we to expect more? Close shaves?
This latest meteor/asteroid was not even noticed until after it had passed earth's orbit.
As a Kiloton-Megaton explosion of "unknown" origin, reaction may be faster than identification.
The possibility of a reactive nuclear strike remains high in such an instance.
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